Chapter Thirty-Two
Friday
Joshua:
The gates to my parents’ house open before I’ve even reached them, recognising the car as I turn off the road and start up the drive.
I had Ruby drop me at Ewan’s instead of bringing me all the way here, mostly because I couldn’t bear the thought of her seeing this place, meeting my parents, or getting even the slightest glimpse of what home is actually like for me.
She’d already tricked me into meeting her mum before she dropped me off anyway.
I’d thought we were stopping at hers for five minutes so she could grab something.
Instead, I ended up wedged around a tiny kitchen table in a three-bedroom council flat while her mum piled shepherd’s pie onto my plate like I hadn’t eaten in a week.
The place was cramped and loud and stuffy, every surface covered in something, photos on the fridge, mugs hanging beneath cupboards, washing draped over a radiator, Oscar taking the piss out of the amount of food his mum had given me while Ruby joined in and told her to stop trying to fatten me up.
Ruby and Oscar spent the whole time mocking her for fussing, but neither of them meant it.
You could tell. The three of them bickered over each other, interrupted constantly, stole food from one another’s plates and somehow managed to make that tiny kitchen feel fuller than this entire house ever has.
There was something almost unbearable about sitting there and watching a family like each other that openly.
No awkwardness. No waiting for someone to say the wrong thing.
Ruby’s mum touched her shoulder every time she passed behind her, and Ruby kept kicking me beneath the table whenever her mum asked me another question about uni.
The house comes into view through the trees a few seconds later, massive and grey against the winter sky, all tall windows and pale stone and more rooms than three people could ever have any use for.
Mum has had someone put the Christmas lights up, white bulbs running along the roof and wrapping neatly around the columns at the front, every tree beside the drive lit from underneath so the whole place looks like one of those houses people slow down to stare at.
It should feel festive, but nothing about this place ever does anymore.
Mum’s car is parked in its usual spot, so I pull in beside it and kill the engine, staying put with both hands wrapped around the steering wheel while the cold slowly creeps through the windows.
There was a time when coming back here didn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out and slam my head into a wall, but those memories feel faded now, shoved so far back they barely seem real anymore.
The ones with James are going the same way and
I’m scared that one day I’ll only remember he existed.
I take my time getting out the car and heading towards the house, there is a huge wreath fixed to the door, along with all the other decorations some random company has been paid to do. It always looks beautiful when they’re finished. Symmetrical, coordinated, completely fucking soulless.
No one comes to the door as I make my way up the steps, there used to be a time when coming home meant me and James laughing as we stumbled into the warm, while Mum yelled at us to shut the door because he was letting all the heat out.
Today I’m met with silence.
“Hello?” I call into the large foyer, all the lights are on and a picture of James is staring back at me. “Mum? Dad?”
There is no response.
I drag my coat off and leave my bag by the bottom of the stairs. “Is anyone in?” I head towards the kitchen, surprised to find dad standing at the island with a glass of whiskey in one hand and his phone in the other.
He barely looks up when I walk in. “You’re back.”
“Yeah.”
Dad exhales through his nose, already irritated by my mere presence, and takes a sip of his drink. “Your mother’s out.”
“Oh?” My eyebrows raise. “Anywhere nice?”
“She’s just with friends,” his tone is cold. “Making an effort to get out more.”
“Good.” I nod, leaning against the counter. “That’s good.”
His grey eyes snap to me. We look a lot alike, he’s what I imagine James would look like as he ages. “Don’t take the piss.”
“Huh?” I frown, confused as to what about that sounded mocking. “I’m not?”
“Hm.” He grunts, putting his phone down on the side, eyes trailing over me. “You look a mess. Have you had your haircut recently?”
I reach up and pat my hair. “Yeah. A few weeks ago.”
Dad snorts. “Might need to get another barber.”
“Right.” I cough. “Yeah.”
He reaches for his glass and rolls the whiskey around before taking another sip. “How’s university?”
“Alright, yeah.” I shove my hands into my pockets; I hate this phony small talk. I wish he would just tell me to get lost like he wants to. “I’m on the Firsts, and I’m doing well with my coursework.”
“Right.”
“How’s things at home?”
Dad puts his drink back down with a thud. “How do you think?”
My stomach pulls tight. “I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”
“Well, your mother is trying to keep herself busy. I’m working. We’re getting through it.”
“Yeah. Sure. I bet.”
He gives me a long look, one that already makes me regret asking. “Christmas is difficult.”
“Yeah,” I nod in agreement. “It is. It’s really hard.”
“No, Joshua.” His tone sharpens. “It’s hard for us. For your mother and I.”
But not me? “Yeah.”
Dad takes another drink, his eyes never leaving mine. “Which is why we’ve decided we’re going away on Christmas Day.”
“Oh?” Shock slams into me. “Where are we going?”
“No. Not with you. Just your mother and I.”
I blink rapidly. “Right. Okay. And I’m…?”
“You’re staying here.”
“Oh.” What the fuck do I say to that? Why have me come home if they didn’t want to spend Christmas with me. “Okay.”
“You’re not a kid anymore.”
“Yeah..?” I push my hands further into my pockets, trying to keep my voice level even though my head has started racing ahead of me. “Sorry. Just when you said we were going away, you meant all of us.”
Dad gives me a look like I’ve deliberately misunderstood him to be difficult. “Why would we take you?”
“I don’t know.” I clear my throat, trying to stop all the emotion from exploding out. “Because it’s Christmas?”
“And I’ve just explained to you why Christmas is difficult for us.”
“Yeah, Dad. I heard you.”
“Then stop making me repeat myself.”
I glance down at the marble floor, trying to swallow everything I want to say. “When are you going?”
“Christmas morning.”
“And when are you back?”
He shrugs in an offhand way. “The New Year.”
I nod slowly, the weight of my grief bearing down on my shoulders. “Yeah. Sure. Okay.”
Dad picks his glass back up. “Sandra is dropping a Christmas dinner round for you.”
My brow furrows. “Who’s Sandra?”
“Your mother’s friend.”
“Do I know Sandra?”
“No. But you will be polite her when she pops over. You should be happy, frankly. You’ll have this entire place to yourself for days. Most boys your age would think they’d won the lottery.”
“Mm, yeah.” I’d rather have stayed in the flat at uni then be stuck in this shrine to my dead brother. There are pictures of him everywhere.
“Your mother feels guilty enough about it, so when you see her don’t start piling on.”
“I haven’t even spoken to Mum.”
“And when you do, I expect you to act like an adult about it. She needs this, Josh. She needs a few days where she isn’t surrounded by this house and everything that happened here.”
What about me? I want to scream. What about what I might like? What I might want? What I might need?
Dad points a finger at me. “Don’t you dare sulk about it either.
We don’t need the shit, Joshua. We do not need you making everything more miserable than it is.
If you have an episode,” he spits the word, “you stay in your room and don’t bother us.
Your mother has spent years dealing with your moods on top of her own grief.
Christmas is hard enough having to watch you selfishly pull us into your never-ending emotions. ”
My tongue feels like lead in my mouth and I push off the counter, needing to get away from him before I say something I can’t take back. “I’m going upstairs.”
Dad glares at me. “See? This is what I mean. I try to be honest with you, and you make your feelings my problem.”
I wave a frustrated hand towards him. “I’ve barely said anything.”
“Your mother worries herself sick over you, trying to work out whether you’re depressed, angry, grieving or about to do something reckless. Do you have any idea how draining that is?”
My mother hasn’t spoken to me in months, couldn’t be bothered to be here when I got back, and is going away for Christmas, leaving me in a monolith to her favourite son. My mother couldn’t give two shits about me. “I imagine it’s very draining.”
“Good. Then you know to make this easy for her.”
“Sure.”
“And keep your shit in check.”
“I will.”
I’ve got nothing but single words. Whatever gets me out of this kitchen and away from where I’m not wanted. Mum never used to be like this, even if dad has always been a prick. She used to love me just as much as she loved James.
At least I think she did.
There are photos of the three of us everywhere from when we were little, Mum crouched between us with an arm around each of our shoulders, kissing whichever head was closest while we tried to wriggle away.
She came to matches, packed our lunches, sat through parents’ evenings and drove us wherever we needed to go.
When I was ill she’d sleep on the floor beside my bed because I hated being left alone, and if Dad took a joke too far she was usually the one who told him to pack it in.
This home is nothing like that now.
I lift my gaze to my dad’s. “Do I need to know anything else?”
He gives me a dirty look. “No.”
“Right,” I point over my shoulder. “I’ll go and unpack.”
“Great.” He half-sneers. “Just keep in mind that your mother is trying.”
Trying to avoid me, more like. “Yeah.”
I leave him there with his whiskey and head back through the house, keeping my eyes on the floor because everywhere else there’s James. James on the walls. James in frames. James in every version of this place where Mum could still stand to look at one of her sons without wishing he was the other.
Fuck me.
It feels like everything has been scraped out of me with a blunt spoon, and shell is going to have to survive here, alone, for weeks.